Hello!
This week we’re having a wintry spell with sunshine, blue skies and even a sprinkling of snow. Such a relief after all the rain we’ve had. On the whole I’m fine with rainy days, but three months of them is a bit much even for me.
On a glorious frosty morning, before we set off for a walk, I popped the four colourwork hats I’d just finished into my backpack for a photo shoot. Before going into the actual hats, this is the yarn I used:
Four skeins of Rowan’s Felted Tweed in the shades Rage, Clay, Cinnamon and Black (from left to right). I like it when manufacturers give their shades names instead of just numbers. The pattern I used is the Colorwork Cap (here on Ravelry). Four skeins make four of these hats when a different shade is used as the main colour for each of them – very economical.
Three of the hats were knit as per pattern. For someone with a smaller head who likes her hats to be closer fitting I made the fourth one (with red as the main colour) shorter. Here they all are in a row in the snow.
The difference will become clearer when you see me wearing them. The original hat is fairly tall. It has a wide colourwork section and a crown with decreases in four places.
The smaller hat has the same ribbing and colourwork band, but decreases in six places and consequently fewer decrease rows.
Here are the two versions side by side – the black hat with decreases in four places and the red one with decreases in six (click on images to enlarge and take a closer look at the decreases). The red hat would have fitted more smoothly over the head if I’d left off part of the colourwork and spaced the decreases out over more rows, but I didn’t want to do that and am happy with the way it turned out.
The photographs were taken in an area with shifting sands that is officially called Aekingerzand, but we call de Kale Duinen (the Bare Dunes). As children this is where we went on our annual school outing, to play ball games and sunbathe on our beach towels. It was like a day on the coast minus the sea. Here is an impression of what it looks like on a winter’s day.
I hope you are keeping well and warm (or cool, for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere) and have had a good start to the new year. The four hats will soon be on their way to their new owners. One more project to finish and then it’s time for something new. I’m bursting with ideas and am looking forward to sharing them with you again this year.
How pretty! Rowan Felted Tweed is a delightful yarn. I remember looking at the shade Rage and considering it. I love that dark red.
Here in Stockholm it was 16 below zero today so all knitted garments came in handy. Tomorrow will be milder, just around zero and then back to fifteen below. Crazy weather but interesting! And I do enjoy the opportunity to dress in wool.
Perfect weather for wearing all your hand knits, but maybe less perfect in other ways. I don’t think I’ve every experienced temperatures as low as that, certainly not during the daytime. I really love Felted Tweed and have used it for many projects. The red is a beautiful intense but not too bright shade.
Actually it wasn’t so bad because there was almost no wind. The wind and the humidity are such important factors.
When I grew up my maternal grandparents lived in the province of Dalarna in the middle of Sweden and 25 below was not unusual. I remember visiting them and going for walks and playing in the snow. Then came an unusually cold winter when the temperature dropped to -25 also in my hometown Göteborg, which is on the coast, i.e. windy and humid. Absolutely horrendous!
Before I read about your experiences, I hadn’t realized that there was such a big difference between Göteborg, central Sweden and where you live now with regard to snow and how the cold feels. It’s interesting to learn about your country. I’ve been to Dalarna (several times), but always in summer. Such a beautiful region.